All of the broadcasts above made strong, misleading statements that some research done at AUT had found that gender bias against women was the main reason for the gender pay gap.

The midday news bulletin stated “Gender bias is the main reason for the wage gap between men and women, not education, occupation or industry according to new research.”

The 1:00pm news bulletin stated “Gender bias is the main reason for the wage gap between men and women, rather than education, occupation and industry according to new research.” and “Bias against women both conscious and unconscious accounted for as much as 83%.”

The 6:00pm news bulletin stated “New research shows 80% of the gender pay gap can be attributed to conscious or unconscious (or and unconscious) bias against women.”

Checkpoint stated “It’s sexism stupid. New research has found the 12% pay gap between men and women is mostly down to gender bias.” and “The research found 80% of the pay gap must be attributed to conscious and unconscious bias against women.”

The actual research paper was not available to the public at the time of these broadcasts but the organization that commissioned the research, the Ministry for Women, had on its web site an article announcing the research findings. It stated:

‘The research found that 80 percent of the gender pay gap was “unexplained”. The Ministry for Women defines the unexplained portion of the gap as “unconscious and conscious bias, and differences in behaviours and choices between men and women”.

So in fact, the research DID NOT FIND that up to 83%, or most, or even a significant proportion of the gender wage gap was caused by or attributable to gender bias. The Ministry for Women had simply decided that ‘unexplained’ equaled ‘gender bias against women and differences in behaviours and choices between men and women’. At least the Ministry for Women was open about the fact that it invented its preferred explanation for what the research found to be unexplained.

RNZ made no mention of the terms ‘unexplained’ or ‘unexplained factors’. It broadcast an apparently edited comment from the Chief Executive of the Employers and Manufacturers Association in Auckland Kim Campbell that called for more research before he was convinced, but was unclear about the most important information regarding this story. It omitted any mention that the researchers had actually found 80% of the gender wage gap to be unexplained, or that gender bias was actually only the Ministry for Women’s invented explanatory possibility and not even a conclusion made by the researchers.

There was no indication that RNZ had talked to the researchers or obtained the research paper to clarify what it had found, yet made strong and misleading claims about alleged findings of that research. The Ministry for Women’s article described the research as being based on data from the New Zealand Income Survey in 2015. That was part of the census, and if RNZ had bothered to try to be accurate it could easily have ascertained that the census questions were never going to be capable of providing information regarding gender bias or women’s behaviour and decisions or any relationship between these matters and the gender wage gap.

RNZ’s statements even misrepresented the Ministry for Women’s article, by failing to mention that the Ministry’s invented explanation included ‘differences in behaviours and choices between men and women’, something very different to gender bias. Although this omission was unacceptable, it only increased the already badly misleading nature of its broadcasts.

To resolve this issue I request that RNZ broadcast an apology and correction that makes it very clear that the research only concluded that 80% of the wage gap was unexplained, that makes it very clear that the ‘gender bias’ and other explanations were invented by the Ministry for Women, and that attributes the invented explanation (‘gender bias’) to whatever source RNZ obtained it from. Further, I request that the apology and correction are broadcast on three separate news bulletins and once on Checkpoint, to balance the frequency with which it misled the public.

17 Responses to “More BS on the Gender Pay Gap”

I have given up. I don’t often listen to Radio NZ, and when I heard the promo for a feminist item, I changed to concert to keep my blood pressure down. But seems to me the junk appearing on STUFF and Herald sites is being missed. Such a flood of anti-male items, I drown. Its too much for me. Did you see Paula Bennet has now engaged the Gendrer Pay Issue and is working on more policy and legislation to correct it? I found a very interesting item in TASS news yesterday which gave a list of female USA teachers who has offended sexually with students – way bigger list than I ever could imagine. Probably the same here. But here and elsewhere, sexism is a one way street.

They don’t seem to like to mention hours worked, holidays and sickies taken. They don’t mention that it’s long been illegal in NZ to pay less to a worker for the same job another does, or the fact we have lot of legal advocates waiting to fine any employers caught discriminating.

I think if there’s any actual gap that could be measured women should be congratulated for it.

They know much better than men do that there is much more to life that’s meaningful and fulfilling apart from the drudgery of labor and toil.

Yes, Trump would be impressed with the Ministry for Women’s audacity in making up false propaganda and with RNZ’s keen cooperation in spreading it with such confident certainty.

The alleged pay gap is now considered the only matter justifying this Ministry for Women’s existence so I guess their dishonesty reflects the desperation of the staff to protect their comfortable jobs in their swank Wellington offices. At least I hope that’s the reason behind this deceitful episode; I would hate to think that such dishonesty might instead be a more general female trait. Feminism of course is based very largely on falsehoods, but I’m sure some male somewhere must be responsible for that.

The above programs and other coverage of the Ministry for Women’s report ‘Empirical Evidence of the Gender Pay Gap in New Zealand’ assert that bias is responsible for 80% of the pay gap but the report explicitly states ” the “unexplained” cannot be unproblematically equated with the extent of labour market discrimination against females. ”

The report also suggests other things that may be the cause of the gap “unobserved differences in characteristics or preferences between males and females” and “personality, attitudes, motivation, and ambition for example”. The report also suggests avenues for further research for likely causes of the gap “While many of these will be difficult to quantify, one set of unobservables that could be included in future research is the subject studied by those that undertook bachelor’s qualifications or higher. For instance, recent research by Frölich (2007) finds that the subject of degree was an important variable in explaining gender wage differences in the UK”

To say that the report found that 80% of the gap is caused by bias is demonstrably not accurate.

It is more accurate to say that the report found that educational attainment, occupation and industry sector controls, other job-related characteristics, regional characteristics, and household characteristics accounted for 20% of the pay gap and the cause of the remaining 80% is not measured in this study. Bias accounts for an unknown proportion of the 80%, with other factors that may explain it also unknown.

Notice that self imployed are not included.
How does that effect things?
There’s a lot of female lawyers for eg.
Self imployed earning heaps.
What about prostitutes.

Or is that not a job when working out hourly pay rates.

There is no evidence of companies paying females less that men.
Where is the example?
The court case?

The report is just regurgitated feminist, poor me, crap.
The report indentified no bias.
The report only alluded to accounting for reasons for the gap.
Was that correct?
How much does job choice count.
How much does having a degree but doing a different job not related to to the degree count.
Or as #6 Ian points out subject within the degree.
What about loyalty in terms of average time at each job?
Had different ways of examining data.
They chose the worst case scenario to publish.
Had data substitutes when data not available.
Excluded the poorest and richest.

Let’s look at this ‘mean’ or average man.
Will work for 50 years.
Will work about 2000 hours a year.
So 100,000 hours
If 12% of the males earnings is $600,000.
Then every 1% is $50,000.
So a male will earn $5,000,000 in a lifetime.
Over 100,000 hours.
Or $50 per hour.

One would have to question.
What males are they using for thier sample.
The tiny number of males working with them?
$50 per hour has to be a lie.
Or a total misrepresentation.
Ie a lie.

Sorry my mistake.
Men go to work and if they are ‘good, comply, and not a real or imagined risk’ then they can help look after the kids when he gets home. Take the rubbish out etc. Nothing to see here!
Women go to work and unless they’re ‘beyond any doubt of being a scumbag’ they have to look after the kids. This work has high value to the future health of society. It should be paid for!

It can and is considered Spousal Support.
Ask the family court.
They already cite it all the time.

DJ Ward @9. Indeed. Well done. I had done a mental estimate myself and I applaud your thoroughness. But here is mine. I never earned $50/hr. Over my working life I estimate very roughly on an annual basis wearning an average of just $30,000pa. If $600,000 is divided by the old 40yr work life it works out at $15,000pa difference which feminists claim I was paid more than the females at work. However they wore high heels and smoooosed with the bosses so actually they took home more than me every week. Their hazard was not out running the boss, or dozing off. I merely worked as close as 2 feet from live 33KV. I remind that my $30,000pa is an estimated average over my working life. These days I see females in the same gangs I worked in, and I bet they are not short changed by $15,000pa, from what their male peers take home. I note that males are being displaced from their traditional work, but there is resistance to them entering female occupations. I am served by women in MENSWEAR, but don’t see males in Women’s wear for example; or child care; or as per recent article “baby-sitting”; and teaching is a hazardous occupation now.
But more than that, although I have not received a pay- check for many years now, I observe that too many workers home no more than I took home, but have a higher costs of living.

DJ Ward @12: Why isn’t that woman, Elizabeth Holmes, in jail? You’re correct about women being less honest. Some research will soon be published showing that women are heavily over-represented in cases of theft from employer and fraud.

Jerry, this was the page where I posted @ comment #15 about the cafe’s overcharging and discriminating against men.

I think you got mine and DJ’s comments confused in your last post.

This cafes male discrimination may turn out to be thier downfall.
Its illegal to descriminate based on height or dress or race or sex.

Honestly, if I lived there, Id go in there, order every expensive seeweed cheese and and taproot wine,cough on it then Id walk away from the table briefly stopping at the counter to tell them I felt uncomfortable with being discriminated against and Id walk out the door with the bill unpaid.
It would be difficult for them to claim theft with the food uneaten.
No wait, I just thought of a better one,i’d take in a 20 litre drum of blood from the freezing works and spill it all over the ugly bitches counter and say this represents the blood men have spent on battlefields for YOUR prvelledges.
“I thought you might enjoy the sacriffial symbolism”.

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